If you have just taken the the SCJP ceritification then you're probably quite young and unexperienced. Noone is going to hire you as a systems architect with UML skills anytime soon so you can as well sharpen your coding skills by producing webcomponents.

Posts:3,328 Registered: 01-10-05

Re: regarding certification Aug 5, 2004 8:03 PM (reply 4 of 16)

Your best choice is not on your list. Its the SCJD, thats the only cert that actually requires you to code.

Posts:18,384 Registered: 21.03.00

Re: regarding certification Aug 6, 2004 1:03 AM (reply 5 of 16)

UlrikaJ,

How did you come to that conclusion? I have many friends who have been programming in Java for many years, and none of them has taken any certifications. Many companies don't see a point in letting the eployees take certifications. I took some certifications a couple of months ago (and I've been programming in Java since -96), just to see if they were hard or not. I would say that a good CV, and good references are more important than certifications.

/Kaj

Posts:5,904 Registered: 04/03/99

Re: regarding certification Aug 6, 2004 1:19 AM (reply 6 of 16)

How did you come to that conclusion?

I have many friends who have been programming in Java for many years, and none of them has taken any certifications.

Because everything you said supported his position ?

Dave.

Posts:18,384 Registered: 21.03.00

Re: regarding certification Aug 6, 2004 1:24 AM (reply 7 of 16)

How did you come to that conclusion?

I have many friends who have been programming inJava for many years, and none of them has taken anycertifications.

Because everything you said supported his position ?

Dave.

What? My reply was to:

If you have just taken the the SCJP ceritification then you're probably quite young and unexperienced.

Which UlrikaJ said. (And isn't Ulrika a girls name?)

/Kaj

Posts:5,904 Registered: 04/03/99

Re: regarding certification Aug 6, 2004 1:55 AM (reply 8 of 16)

"probably"

Most of your friends, who have been programming for many years, have not taken the SCJP, and you yourself only took it quite recently.

Of course there are experienced people who've taken it (I took it quite recently, for whatever that's worth). But it does seem that mostly it's people who have something to prove who bother to get it. The ones with umpteen years of experience don't usually need to bother.

And yes Ulrika is a girl's name; didn't really notice who had posted.

Dave.

Posts:2,909 Registered: 13.8.2003

Re: regarding certification Aug 6, 2004 2:36 AM (reply 9 of 16)

Ulrika is a tranny, you can call it him if you want to.

Posts:5,904 Registered: 04/03/99

Re: regarding certification Aug 6, 2004 3:07 AM (reply 10 of 16)

Ulrika is a tranny, you can call it him if you wantto.

In which direction ? Girl dressed up as boy, or boy dressed up as girl. No, on the other hand I don't want to know. And whatever happens, don't tell Robo.

Dave.

Posts:3,328 Registered: 01-10-05

Re: regarding certification Aug 6, 2004 4:11 AM (reply 11 of 16)

I also have umpteen years of experience (C, C++, APL, Assembler, VB and Java since 1.0) and recently took the SCJP 1.4, its not as easy as those who haven't taken it would think. It takes real work to get 90% on it. For Ulrika there is an automatic 15% handicap for C++ programmers. Anyone who uses java at all should be able to pass since that only requires 52%. All you need to do is be able to think like the complier for an hour or so.

The SCJD is actually quite challenging, even for an experienced developer who is familiar with sockets, i/o and swing. It gives you a chance to do many of those things you rarely get a chance to do in real work such as design using patterns, write good comments and javadoc and thoroughly document your work. It also makes you figure out what a typical poorly specified requirement really means, this is a standard activity in many workplaces. This one requires 80% to pass.

The SCWCD looks pretty easy, I tried one of the practice exams, (all I know about JSP and Servlets is that servlet has only 2 e's and how to install Tomcat and modjk2 on Solaris) , I got 50% without any studying. Someone who really uses these technologies should have no trouble getting the 62% needed to pass.

I don't think certifictions are worth that much as far as career advancement is concerned, although they may help you get past HR's automated resume filters. However you do learn a lot, my compiles are now close to 100% clean first time, that certainly wasn't the case before.

Posts:18,384 Registered: 21.03.00

Re: regarding certification Aug 6, 2004 4:34 AM (reply 12 of 16)

Hi,

taken it would think. It takes real work to get 90%on it.

Hmm.. don't know if that is true, I didn't study that much, read through a certification book, and I did only answer wrong on one question. (And that bothers me a lot).

But I do agree that people how haven't been reading any java books at all will have a hard time to pass the test. (Since many of the question was question you usually writes a test for, or debugs something to find the answer)

The SCJD is actually quite challenging, even for anexperienced developer who is familiar with sockets,i/o and swing. It gives you a chance to do many ofthose things you rarely get a chance to do in realwork such as design using patterns, write goodcomments and javadoc and thoroughly document yourwork.

What? Don't you always write 100% javadoc for all your code? (And not only for the public interface of the classes) :)

Taking the SCJD was fun, but I there were a lot of things that I would never do in real life. Come on, blocking without a time out.

I would like to see a certification for server programming only. That would be fun.

/Kaj

Posts:196 Registered: 6/24/97

Re: regarding certification Aug 6, 2004 5:04 AM (reply 13 of 16)

Your next certification depends on where you are in your career and where you want to get to.

At most, a certification is just a door opener - it may get your resume selected for an interview, when otherwise it could/would have been bypassed. At the end of it all, your interview will reveal a lot about your soft skills (interpersonal, communication, receptiveness) etc which no certification can measure. It is then completely up to you.

So, the way I would proceed is:1) See the job adds that are coming your way. Circle the ones that interest you.2) Now, see what is common amongst them. What are they asking for ? If you were the advertiser, would you select your resume for an interview ?3) Which certification would make your resume look more attractive ??

Your certification should also be comensurate with your experience. If you have 5-6 yrs of Java experience, a coding cert is useless. If you have 2 yrs, getting certified as an architect is useless.

Also, think about spreading your skillset a bit - If you have deep java skills for which you can show lots of experience, but llittle or no RDBMS skills, a certification in some RDBMS may broaden your job prospects.

Also be aware that some people will actively filter out candidates that have too many certificates to their credit.

Posts:3,328 Registered: 01-10-05

Re: regarding certification Aug 6, 2004 8:56 AM (reply 14 of 16)

Also be aware that some people will actively filterout candidates that have too many certificates totheir credit.

You mean someone like this one from javaranch? If I were hiring, I might suspect "Professional Student".